Loose ends to drive second term education agenda

Lawmakers from both parties may be more timid next term about embracing Common Core.

Loose ends and thorny partisan issues that have long dogged attempts to move forward on education await the next Congress as President Barack Obama’s second term begins.

Soaring campaign-year aspirations to close the achievement gap and boost college graduation rates to the highest in the world may have to fall back to earth — at least temporarily — as lawmakers and Obama tackle a number of gritty funding-related issues that just can’t wait.

First up is sequestration, the automatic, government-wide spending cuts set to knock out 8.2 percent of the funding to almost all of the Education Department’s programs — unless Congress acts before the end of the year to avert the cuts.

Programs intended to reduce educational inequities will take a hit of $1.3 billion, according to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. Special education, already funded far below the levels Congress originally promised, will be slashed by more than $1 billion. Most of the reductions won’t take effect until next fall, when the 2013-14 school year starts, but Impact Aid, which helps districts that lose revenue due to local tax-exempt federal property, would be cut immediately.

Education advocates are optimistic a plan will be hashed out that will leave most major education programs relatively unscathed.

“Even Republicans understand that cutting education spending is not something that is popular with voters,” said Michael Petrilli, a former Education Department official and executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank.

What comes next is less certain. The Education Department refused to comment on its agenda for the next four years, but Secretary Arne Duncan, who has said he would like to stay on for Obama’s second term, has hinted at the administration’s focus. Petrilli and others closely watching the administration’s signals on education say it’s likely the focus will be on early childhood education and higher ed.

Pre-kindergarten was a major focus for Obama in his first term, when he strengthened Head Start’s accountability rules and expanded his Race to the Top program to include pre-K.

In Congress, both parties agree that college costs are spiraling out of control, but there’s not much government can do to control that. What it can control is student aid, and the debate about federal loans raises a familiar disagreement about the role of government. In 2010, when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress, the federal government cut banks out of the process and started administering all loans directly. Many Republicans favor restoring the private sector’s role in issuing federally backed and subsidized loans.

Higher ed also comes with a delicate set of ticking time bombs. Student loan interest rates, capped at 3.4 percent for new subsidized Stafford loans, are set to double July 1, the expiration date for a stopgap Congress passed last year. Pell Grants, the main source of federal aid for low-income students, face the same type of crisis as entitlements like Medicare and Social Security: a cost curve that’s become difficult to contain as more people take part.

When it comes to K-12 education, the prospects increase for a tug of war between Obama and Congress.